London Calling

My mother and best friend in law school and guy I write love letters to are really glad I didn’t pierce my septum in London, but I’m not so sure. If it’s safe to say anything ever, it’s safe to say that I’m impulsive, often. It might be genetics, tbh. Things sound like good ideas or necessary ideas until they aren’t. And by that point I’ve usually spent a stupid amount of money on artisanal treats or put down a deposit on an apartment in St.Petersburg, Russia or sprinted, in Nikes, across Marion Square and down Charlotte Street to argue with an ex before he was an ex. Sometimes I curse this spontaneity and other times I look it in the face in the mirror and say hey, thanks for making that choice, just then. It has rewards– wanting to do something so badly at once.

So over afternoon tea in Workshop Coffee in Marylebone, I thought, while watching black cabs and rain and general grayness pass by, that a septum piercing wouldn’t do any harm. That things don’t have to make sense. I’m only twenty-one once and by myself in this part of the world when I am. I wanted something new and another part of me wanted to prove to the part of myself, who, at thirteen, did briefly wear pink and black tartan and think Sid Vicious was better than all the boys I knew. Before I understood the kind of life he actually lived.

I wanted to be like my brothers, older and off riding skateboards and meticulously grooming their dyed hair into liberty spikes. They got out of those ripped clothes in a couple years but it took me two decades to see London for the first time and I didn’t really think about those boys, my brothers, or their combat boots or their safety pins until I left. And when I did leave, I decided that I should have asked them for their opinion. They would have said I could pull it off. To them, it would have made more sense. To them, I wouldn’t have any explaining to do. London called and it said do something here!!! but I resisted and just looked at what was around to be looked at. I left the Big Smoke with the same face and a new pair of boots. Pretty ones.

*Pretend there’s a piercing there instead of just a girl listening to Taylor Swift’s 1989 near Buckingham Palace*